A nanofluid is a suspension of nano sized particles made up of metal, oxides or carbides of size up to 100 nm in a base fluid of water, ethylene glycol or oil. Recently large numbers of experiments have been are carried out to evaluate the effect of nanofluid in enhancement of the heat transfer rate in various heat exchangers. The heat transfer enhancement using nanofluid mainly depends on type of nanoparticles, size of nanoparticles, shape of nanoparticles, type of base fluid and concentration of nanoparticles in the base fluid. In the present paper, an experimental evaluation has been carried out to determine the effect of various concentration of CuO nanoparticles mixed in water on heat transfer characteristics of double pipe heat exchanger for parallel flow and counter flow arrangement. The volume concentrations of CuO nanofluid prepared by two step method are 0.002 %, 0.003% and 0.004 %. The conclusion derived for the study is that overall heat transfer coefficient increases with increase in volume concentration of CuO nanoparticle compared to water which have been validated by theoretical prediction also.